Kiss
by The Blue Fenix
Summary: Post-"Doomsday Armageddon Apocalypse." No connection to my previous series of 'shipper stories. Lacey has forgotten the Middleman exists, and he had previously been in love with the Middlewoman who trained him, Raveena Rao. Also Tyler is a rock star.
1. Chapter 1 Kiss

A quiet moment in the control room, when no world-saving was going on. When – she realized much later how unusual it was – Ida the annoying robot was out of the room. The Middleman stopped what he was doing and turned to his partner with the most … _neutral_ body language she'd ever seen. "Wendy." He almost never used her full first name. Her mind was so focused on that, she nearly missed the next words. "I've been thinking about something, lately. A lot. I wanted to bring the idea to your attention." Which wasn't at all how he talked. He was either save-the-world confident and decisive or politely at arm's length from lesser beings. He …

Bent his head, moving slow and smooth, and kissed her. Nothing extreme, no tongue-diving, but she couldn't mistake it for comrade-in-arms. Soft, warm lips that tasted like toothpaste. Gentle, with an edge of passion. Her toes curled at the other things he probably could … _certainly_ could … do if he kissed like that. Then he ended it with the same quiet good manners and drew back to arm's length.

"Um. I. Um." Wendy had apparently forgotten the entire English language. He had an incredible mutant power, kind of a shame it wouldn't be much use fighting comic-book evil. "Wow."

"I know it's sudden," he said gravely. "There never seemed to be a right time. But now..." A wry, lopsided smile she'd never imagined. "I wanted to take a number while no-one else was in line."

Her breakup with Tyler hadn't been anything dramatic. Maybe not even enough to count as official. An important music-promotion tour he absolutely had to go on. She absolutely couldn't go too because of work. A slow dwindling of calls and text messages. It was his turn to call next, she'd resolved. Aware that Tyler probably though the same about her. "What about being a little sister to you? Emphasis on little?" Though he hadn't seen age as a barrier to falling in love with Lacey.

"There's that too. Always, if that's how you want things. But I'm _noticing_ more than a honorary sibling ought to." She could feel his eyes on her like physical contact. Realized how carefully he'd been not looking, turning his back or getting interested in his shoelaces, when she changed in the locker room. "A vocabulary of thirty thousand words isn't doing me much good at the moment."

Wendy could identify. Five or six sentences clogged her throat. The first one to get loose was, "Do you have any idea how scary you are?"

The Middleman took it like a punch in the face. "Not you-can-hurt-me scary," Wendy said quickly. "I know you better than that. Scary because you're intense and _God_, beautiful and you carry the whole world every day like it's just a job. And you don't have any speeds between _off_ and _full power_. You don't have limits. I can't imagine any stopping points between kissing you back and spending the rest of our lives madly in bed together. And you don't get it that _other_ people aren't like that. Especially me."

She could see a speech about her so-incredible evil-fighting abilities building behind his expression. Talked faster. "I'm just _not_. Even for work, I save the world and then I go be super-ordinary for a while to decompress. I need that balance. You don't."

"I've lived an unbalanced life as long as you've known me, that's true," he said quietly. "I did it to myself, because of Raveena. You know that."

"I do know that. But I think it's become the real you, after all that time. Clarence Colton." Wendy's tone put the name in quotes. "I can't say it. Not because it's a little goofy, but because you're not _him_ any more. You're The Middleman, lots of capital letters. And Raveena." His former mentor, partner, and lover. Wendy had met the dead Middleman (Middlewoman?) briefly in a place between life and afterlife. "I wasn't going to say anything. Old news. But if I was six inches taller, ten or fifteen years older, I'd look like her sister. I can't be superhuman for you. I sure as hell can't be _her _for you. So I guess that's my answer, really."

Nice rational decision. Nice of him to let her make it. All sensible, self-controlled adults around here. Wendy didn't try to add to the speech. Because if she spoke, if she _thought_ too hard about speaking, it would come out howling like a lost baby.

He knew. He couldn't miss knowing. One step, she could be in his arms letting it all out. One touch, one fingertip on her hand, and she'd fall like an avalanche. He could own her; he could make her cry tears of joy for being owned. So tempting, so wrong. She saw every muscle stand out like bridge cables, forbidding himself to close that last distance.

An ice-hot lump closed her throat, but Wendy could make her lips work. He could read them. _I'm not your equal. I'm sorry._ Wendy turned, running her own body like a robot. When the door closed behind her, he still hadn't moved.


	2. Chapter 2 Indecision

Indecision

Wendy drove her MiddleSmartCar home on automatic pilot. Figuratively; she wanted the chore of driving to keep her mind busy. She'd have the sublet to herself, coming home early like this. Perfect Warren -- Wendy snarled to herself -- had helped Lacey find a job at a vegan community center. It barely covered student loan payments, but it absorbed a lot of the other girl's time.

Anyway, the Middle-autopilot drove too politely. Wendy cut off a car twice her size, using every erg of the tiny engine. _Gutwrencher 4 in 3D, you are going down._ Total immersion in a video game was not the escape it used to be. After fighting real aliens, monsters, and the occasional demigod, computer zombies were too easy. The laptop's processor couldn't keep up with her real-world combat reflexes. A new _Gutwrencher_ usually took seventy or a hundred hours of play time. She'd burned through two-thirds of this one in a weekend.

Noser was in the hallway, playing something bluesy. "Hey, Wendy Watson." His mild Zen expression changed. "Something's wrong. Tyler?"

"It's not Tyler." Maybe it never was. Wendy wondered if his could-have-been-but-wasn't status as a fellow Middle-trainee helped or hurt. " No problems, Noser. My boss just asked me out. Sort of. Very politely."

"Woah."

"Not his type?"

"Not sure what took him so long. Girl, he gave you a car."

"That was just work." Wendy blushed. "Company car; I'm paying it back a little at a time out of my salary." She resolved to set that up, if he'd let her. Middlemen didn't earn much, judging by the trainee salary, but hers seemed to have no personal expenses. She could imagine uncashed paychecks stacking up.

_That's not the kind of price he pays. _Three months ago they'd all lived in a different universe. Tyler had been an unsuccessful musician working for the enigmatic Manservant Neville as a day job. Perfect Warren had barely been a blip on Lacey's radar. After almost a year of edging around the subject, Lacey and the Middleman were starting to act on a shy but intense mutual attraction. _True love, actually._ Then Neville took over the planet.

World in chaos, Tyler dead, Lacey dying, Wendy a prisoner. The Middleman had used the most powerful weapon in their arsenal, bending time and reality back into shape. Putting the world to rights in mid-apocalypse. They'd all expected it to cost him his life; he'd lost Lacey's affection instead. Lives saved, world saved, but that relationship had never happened and never would.

And one more thing. In the new universe, Tyler was a moderately famous musician. That change had to be a grace note, a tribute to original-Tyler's heroic death. Maybe a sideways attempt to make Wendy happy through her boyfriend. If so, it hadn't been a complete success. _It was a lot easier being in love with Tyler when he hung around all the time. _Tyler had called Wendy his soulmate, in both old and new universes. But if she was _his_, she wouldn't drift away just because he had to tour with his new album.

Wendy felt sure new-universe Noser was as keen an observer as the original. "What do you think?"

"About your boss?" Noser shrugged. "I did not know Clark Kent and Dudley Do-right loved each other that much."

Wendy inhaled in shock, giggled; the combination hurt. Noser didn't laugh along. "What do you want me to say? He steps up."

"He does. Always." Wendy felt guilty. "I know he'd be good to me. No question. But _I'd _be bad for _him_. You know how I get when a relationship starts making me jumpy. I'd rip him apart."

Noser blinked. "Looks pretty tough to me."

"That's different." The man who kissed her hadn't been the indestructible hero. Someone much simpler under the layers of reserve and military competence. Someone who'd rather spend years living like a monk, after losing true love, than settle for less. Damned if Wendy was going to hurt that pure soul. "I have to kill zombies, Noze. Lots and lots of zombies."

He gestured. "Necktie on the door."

Wendy stared at her sublet door and used a word. She hadn't beaten Lacey and Warren home after all. _Am I this big a pain when I get hot and heavy with a boyfriend?_ But Lacey had no inhibitions about overhearing or over-seeing other couples. Wendy was finding she did. At least, when she didn't have someone of her own to make noise with.

Sighed. "I got paid yesterday. Let me buy you a lobster dinner, Noser."

He shook his head. "This song needs a bridge, Wendy Watson. It'll come to me. Same for you. Take the time, you'll know what you want to say. Who to say it to. Trust your feelings, Padwan."

"Which ones?" Wendy turned away.


	3. Chapter 3 Normalcy

Part Three

Normalcy

The arcade _Gutwrencher One_ at the pancake house was even easier than the settop box version. Wendy's skills must have taken a jump since Tyler brought her here for their third date. Playing solo on the two-player machine made her feel worse than before. She walked away without her extra quarters ten minutes into level eight.

The seafood restaurant wasn't even that much of a distraction. She sat in the parking lot for ten minutes, left without getting out of her car. The Middleman fed ducks at a pond somewhere when he needed to think. But Wendy didn't know where. Nowhere was the right place without the right person along, she'd gotten that much.

Normal. None of her life was normal, not the art-school bohemian and not the superhero. Wendy could try it her mom's way once. Go be normal in normal mainstream Normalvania. With people named Norm. The comedy club, down the street where illegal sublets and warehouses faded into restaurant row, was having 'ladies drink free' night.

Wendy could swear that at some point in her life, strawberry daiquiris had tasted _good_. She knew she was out of practice at clubbing, but this was ridiculous. She couldn't remember the last time she'd really soaked up the trashcan punch, even at an Art Crawl. Half a jello shot seemed to be enough these days. _Another change sneaking up on me. _The drinks were a chemical mess – she could taste the preservatives and food coloring – but they worked all right. The comedians got funnier with every sip, even the bad ones. An extremely tiny woman brought up a guitar; her song about a Waffle House sign with missing letters almost had Wendy falling off her seat laughing.

A guy with Tyler's hair color, on the barstool to her left, was very patient about letting her talk. Even when Wendy wasn't sure she was making sense. She might have slipped a little, said one or two Middle-secret or at least ambiguous-secret things. But he didn't seem upset. He was drinking the banana daiquiris instead of the strawberry.

_Face to face again, the Middleman's warm strong arms around her. He didn't even kiss her this time, just leaned their foreheads together. Wendy started kissing him instead. That's better. His fingers trailed slowly down her spine; Wendy melted. Go limp, lie back. Relax, it'll be every bit as pure and intense as that first kiss..._

A chemical taste that had nothing to do with the alcohol.

Wendy took a sharp breath, focused on sight-smell-sound-touch until she was fully oriented. The guy across from her looked concerned. "Are you feeling okay, babe? Need some help?"

He didn't really look like Tyler. Just a slightly handsome, ordinary doofus. Maybe with something cold in the back of the eyes. Boss had said once that an amazing amount of evil began as _lazy_, someone trying to find a shortcut so they didn't have to face the hard slog of living life the honest way.

Wendy put a hand on the guy's wrist. "Why, you complete _amateur_." A laugh-snarl got out without her permission. "Killer _luchadores_, death rays, aliens, mad scientists, and what else? _A twit_." He pulled back. The smooth facade slipped when he couldn't budge Wendy's grip. "But you know what I'm going to do? Just for grins, I'm going to save your life."

"Hey, I don't know what you're talking about..."

"Watch me. It's cool, really, like a magic trick. First I say the magic word." Wendy leaned in close to her watch, over-enunciated. "Ro-hyp-nol." She started counting seconds in her head.

He looked shocked. Wendy didn't buy it. "Hey, it's not on _me_ if you had too much to drink. I just ..."

"Haven't finished the trick. Now. Give it – we're south of the interstate, right? – three minutes tops. Ask me what for. Come on, say it."

He was torn between surprise and – she should have noticed it before – an inward smugness. Predator watching prey. No innocence here. "'What for.'"

"Your life expectancy. Except that I'm going to make you disappear." Wendy twisted brutally on the nearest finger. The guy screamed.

Tiny, almost random consciousness-clips instead of a continuous stream. People yelling. Other people yelling. It was very important not to let her reflexes free and hit them. Trying to build complete sentences without using any Middle-terminology. Standing on the sidewalk outside the club – the building wall helped her stay vertical. Wendy wasn't in fighting trim any more but she was perfectly safe with these crowds around.

Her second-count was a hopeless tangle, but she recognized a silhouette against the parking lot lights. "There!" Wendy pointed with both hands, lost her balance. "Wrath of God in tight-ass pants. Clarence the cross-eyed lion."

The Middleman rumbled something she couldn't quite follow. The other people on the sidewalk melted away. Wendy grinned. "Hi, boss."

She'd seen him afraid for her before, or outraged at some insult to her. He'd had time, on the emergency-rescue drive from HQ, to process both emotions down to general irritation. "Not funny, Dubbie," he growled.

"Says you. You didn't see the look on his face. What are they called? Those little bones, the ones in the fingers."

"Phalanges." He steered her with a supportive hand under one elbow. "You could have called a taxi. Or the police – drugging you was a felony."

"Phalanges. I think I broke two instead of one, is that extra points? Guy was a _twit_. How pathetic do you have to be?"

"I'm sure he's learned a valuable life lesson." The Middlemobile loomed in front of them. He helped Wendy into the passenger side. "No, you can't drive."

She pouted. "What's the deal, anyway? Superhero, here. Shouldn't the training with Sensei _Piiiiing_" she mimicked the rising tone until it got away from her, "make me immune to this stuff?"

He started the engine. "The biofeedback and _chi_ focusing techniques speed up your metabolism. You're more sensitive, not less. You'll have quite a head in the morning, Dubbie."

"So not fair. Totally fu …." Wendy caught herself, carefully pronounced "_bleeping_ unfair."

He started the car. "I'll get you home. Sleep late in the morning. I'll let you know if we have an emergency."

"Can't go home. Lacey and Warren are all over the place. I was going to use the couch in the records room." Her head wobbled slightly as the car turned. "Or your place. Got a couch? Second thought, who cares." She grinned.

That careful, neutral expression again. The Middleman kept his eyes on the road. "I thought that was a no."

Another long-restrained remark broke free. "The utility belt, with the pockets and things? It's like having a frame of reference to _analyze_ how your ass moves. Some kind of biomechanics, physics thing. I have never seen a nicer ass."

"Settle down, Dubbie."

"Yeah, like you don't know it. The you in the evil universe had a _strut_ going. Leather chaps. You do a little bit too sometimes, when you forget to be GI Joe or whoever. Like a great big happy kid. It's sweet. _You're_ sweet. You're the hottest guy in the world, and I was stupid."

She grabbed. He blocked it easily. "No, Dubbie." Voice still low, in tone and volume, but no menace at all now. Wendy felt melted. She made a small needy sound. He put her hands firmly back in her own lap. "You can't give meaningful consent right now. There's a significant chance you wouldn't remember doing it."

"I'll send myself a video message on the watch."

"Let me win this argument, Wendy." He didn't touch her, but the shading he gave her name was like hands everywhere. "For vanity if no other reason. If we're together, I want to be memorable." He said more words, but she was dissolving like tempera in water.


	4. Chapter 4 Morning

The bed smelled like him. Wendy knew that before she remembered who _he_ was, before any of her other senses turned on. Faintly, masked by no-scent laundry soap, but enough to waken nerves in her spine. Must be the pillow itself. She inhaled deeper. Spread her arms to both sides, but the bed was empty and chill outside her personal pool of body heat.

Wendy opened her eyes. Closed again fast and cursed. _Damn Sensei Ping hangover._ Blocking the evil daylight with an arm over her eyes helped; she didn't throw up. _Half a beer, that's where I quit from now on._

She steeled herself and sat up. The daylight hurting her eyes turned out to be just a crack around the edges of motel-like heavy curtains, on a window opposite the bed. The whole room was motel-like, bland to the point of featureless.

But the pillow smelled like him. Wendy pulled herself together and looked around with more attention. Hotel-plain furniture and fittings, yes. Not a stray personal item in sight. Still. She opened the bedside table drawer. It was two-thirds full of normal life debris like combs and Kleenex. An old but mint-condition Western paperback, with bookmark, rested on top of the pile. _Not dead and empty clean, white glove inspection clean. This is his bedroom. _

Wendy's face felt hot, as if she'd accidentally caught her partner naked. More so. Changing in the same locker room was routine, or had been. She wanted to open every drawer and cabinet in an orgy of snoopiness. The blush got worse. _I said no, I drew a line. I've got to respect the line too. _Wendy closed the drawer.

She'd lied to herself a little bit, yesterday. Her drunk self had called her on it. _I worded that 'no' wrong. If I really wanted things back the way they were, the way I thought they were … it would be simple. "Sorry, there's just no attraction." He'd take that as no __forever__, however much it hurt. Yeah. I should have said that. __Except it would be a complete damned lie._

He was utterly not her type. Wendy kept finding herself with with short, wiry guys, Asian and otherwise. Even Tyler's medium-tall solidity had been off pattern for her. The boss' long-boned, muscular mass was like an alien species. His face was nothing to complain about – only heavy cheekbones kept _handsome_ from tipping over to _insanely pretty_ – but again, nothing like Wendy's tastes. He just didn't look like a boyfriend. _Because he's not a boy. Bet he wasn't one ten years ago, either. He's seen too much and done too much to be anything short of a grown man. Middleman. I can take that or leave it, he won't change._ Wendy didn't see a matching strength in herself to measure up.

Still she could imagine them, in this room, on this bed. Couldn't stop herself imagining. The first time might be awkward and scary, crossing the line between partners and _partners_. But the image sent electricity through her, too. He'd be gentle, that was his nature. He'd go as slow as she wanted, maybe slower than she could stand. Wendy could stare into his eyes from an inch away when she let him inside. They'd glow gold with completion.

He was a contented man, day to day. But she'd only seen him _that_ happy once. Defeating evil with Ravenna's ghost beside him, then a slow walk up a flight of metal stairs. Smiling a little, serene. Saving the world would cost his life, but only his; everyone else would be safe. That had to be some kind of ultimate apothesis for a Middleman, at least a Middleman who woke up every day ready to die.

_Damn you, the __best__ that could happen is you love me and leave me..._

Wendy noticed then that he'd left two aspirin and half a glass of water on the nightstand. At the foot of the bed, her emergency sweats from the locker room lay folded in a crisp square stack.

Wendy took the aspirin and sniffled. _Can't help loving the guy. _Which wouldn't stop her breaking his heart. She'd made the right call. If anyone was at fault it was him, knocking down her protective layers of denial. She'd kept the friendship and the unto-death partnership and the healthy esthetic appreciation for his body in different compartments, buffered with sarcasm and irony. All the walls were cracked now, the contents cross-reacting like Diet Coke and Mentos.

He had a bathroom, again very hotel-like. One of the towels smelled like him. Wendy showered off the daquiri-sweat and dried herself on the other one.

Wendy knew she was in Middle HQ. She couldn't imagine the boss living anywhere else. The room turned out to be on the second level, three doors down from the dojo and five from the locker room. She'd walked past it every day for a year without knowing. Wendy didn't know how long he'd been a Middleman alone, living for the job, since Raveena died. Her gut said years.

She kept opening doors. Locker room, empty. Dojo, archive room, armory, empty. Wendy found the Middleman in the minimal kitchen near the control room, running the coffee maker. For her, since he thought caffeine was a drug. He heard her, turned with the same partnerly smile she'd expect any morning. "I thought you'd be up soon." Just as if she'd never turned him down and then flaked out on him.

Wendy tried to match that composure. "Thanks for the ride. Where'd you wind up sleeping last night?"

"Sleeping bag. Perfectly comfortable. There are other residential suites, but I wanted to keep an eye on you."

Wendy remembered the hard bedroom floor and drew her own conclusions about comfort. "I'm sorry I put you out. It won't happen again."

He handed her the coffee. "Dubbie … I'm not questioning your personal choice. But some of what you said yesterday overlaps with our professional duties. You said...." _I'm not your equal,_ she'd said. "You seemed to lack confidence in yourself." An absolutely frank look. "Is that also your self-assessment as a Middleman? I'm afraid that much _is_ my business."

"Um." She hadn't expected the question. _Water is wet, the sky is blue, you're a superhero and I'm not._ Wendy sipped the life-giving caffeine. Bluntly, "What did you think? You could bench-press me with one hand. I'm not going to beat up seventy-five Lucha Libre wrestlers and get out alive. Not without a machine gun." She pretended to flex a girl-bicep. "This is news?"

"There's more to our job than heavy lifting," the Middleman said earnestly. "We had an eight-year-old boy as trainee at one point."

"No shit?"

A minor wince. "He didn't go on missions on school nights at first. But he had an impressive career both as trainee and in his own right. His Middleman found him … he'd killed a full-grown adult, for an excellent reason." His pale skin went paler. Wendy decided against requesting details. "She got the knife away and adopted him. He was very good at focusing repressed anger, later on."

"That's still a guy, though. I'm not going to get any more growth spurts." Wendy felt hollow inside in a way the coffee couldn't reach. She set it down. Stared at her feet. "I'm good backup. But I don't know if I can do the main job. I don't even know if _you_ think so."

"Wendy Watson." The formal words as much as the tone made her look up. He never used her full name. The Middleman met her eyes with complete sincerity. "You were, and are, the best candidate for this job. I knew it when I saw you fighting a level-three incursion with a letter opener. Your achievements since have confirmed that decision. I didn't go trolling for an admiring yes-woman. Or a date." He looked upset. "That would betray every principle I believe in, and put both our lives in danger as well."

"Yeah, you wouldn't do that," she conceded. _Not if you realized it._

He saw her lack of enthusiasm. "A few months ago you stopped a full-fledged, experienced Middleman alone. And saved my life in the process. He had a gun and the element of surprise; you still beat him."

"Guy Goddard? That was …" Wendy's heart sank. "That was a trick. I didn't fight him, I messed with his mind."

"All combat begins and ends in changing your enemy's mind. Force is just one possible tool. Dubbie, you were never ordinary. Now, with the first year of training under your belt, you walk the civilian world like a tiger. Even if you don't see it in yourself. Certainly ordinary human beings are no danger to you; you saw that last night."

She shrugged. "I yelled for help."

"For a ride home, at most. If I hadn't been available you'd have used another resource."

Wendy didn't answer. He sighed. "Since I _have_ made you doubt my motives – and thereby doubt yourself – I owe amends. As your partner and especially as your mentor. Come with me."

The control room – Wendy's eyes avoided the spot they'd stood in yesterday, for that kiss – looked the same as always. Ida was plugged into HEYDAR by a bundle of cables as big around as Wendy's wrist. "Morning, boss." The robot's eyes moved. "Skank."

Wendy grinned at the comfortable, normal hostility. _So what would scare you more, having me as your boss or as practically your daughter-in-law?_ "Ida."

The Middleman went to one of the file drawers. "I'd been meaning to give these to you anyway." A pair of stylishly narrow, dark-framed glasses a little heavier than Wendy's normal ones.

"Uh, thanks." She'd come into this job nearsighted. An hour in an alien machine, her first week, gave her better than 20/20 vision for life. Wendy only wore her old glasses at home now, with plain lenses, to avoid explanations to Lacey and friends. "What for?"

"Video input to HQ. The version we used in the Lucha Libre case was a bit conspicuous." Clunky seventies-style sunglasses, he meant. "And output, though I don't recommend that for most situations. The projected image would block your vision. With the Middlewatch's audio capacity, this will provide a complete two-way link to headquarters."

Wendy could just imagine Ida crabbing in her ear on a real mission. "You sure that's a good idea?"

"Everyone can use advice once in a while." He sat down, in a chair in front of one of the control panels. "Famuse Fashion House. They're expecting you. Roxy has acquired a magical artifact. Nothing combat-ready, she's keeping the terms of our pact, but it would be better in completely secure hands. Bring it in. Ida can show you the storage rooms when you get back."

"Me, by myself?"

"One of the main responsibilities of my job is teaching _you_ to do my job, do it as well as I can. Otherwise I've betrayed us both. Tell Roxy hello."

Wendy was shocked at how much the idea startled her. They did everything together, easy missions and hard ones. It was what they did. Not that she couldn't courier a box across town, obviously. "What if cowboy ninjas attack and try to steal the McGuffin?"

He looked bland. "Don't let them."


End file.
